A world of possibilities
DEVIN HEILMAN/Press Morgan Uribe, 10, of Hayden, waves to spectators Saturday during the 2017 GizMotion parade in Coeur d'Alene City Park. Morgan and her cousin Drake Owens, 10, of Colorado, brought the Nintendo spirit to the parade as they dressed as Mario Bros. Mario and Luigi and roller bladed in homemade "Mario Karts."
DEVIN HEILMAN/Press Loren "Darth Vader" Roberts, 14, pilots a homemade "Star Wars" TIE fighter through City Park as her dad, Marty Roberts, dressed as Kylo Ren, leads the way during the GizMotion parade Saturday.
DEVIN HEILMAN/Press All roads lead to somewhere imaginative Saturday during the 2017 GizMotion Celebration of Creativity in Coeur d’Alene City Park. About 30 different stations invited kiddos to explore a variety of art and science activities, from painting and using bubbles to reassembling toys. This was the third year for GizMotion, formerly known as Kinetic Fest.
COEUR d’ALENE — The sun-soaked visitors to Coeur d'Alene City Beach had quite the sci-fi surprise Saturday when they turned to see a giant TIE fighter rolling along the promenade.
"That is totally amazing," one spectator said as she biked by, laughing to herself.
This particular replica of a TIE fighter — the Imperial starfighter in "Star Wars" — was powered by the kinetic energy of 14-year-old Loren Roberts, who looked most imposing in her Darth Vader costume as she pedaled from a high seat within the handmade vehicle.
"We love 'Star Wars,' our parents have loved 'Star Wars,'" she said. "They thought they knew everything about 'Star Wars,' and we're like, 'I don't think so.'"
"We've become more geeks than they have," said Loren's sister Lila, 11, who rode behind in a kinetic, hand-crafted "Star Wars" speeder.
The Roberts family "Star Wars" tradition was one highlight of the third annual GizMotion Celebration of Creativity, formerly Kinetic Fest, presented by Gizmo-CDA. About 40 other human-powered vehicles paraded through the park around the 30 activity booths in the Village of Creativity and past many amused onlookers.
"I think they're pretty neat," said Drake Owens, 10, of Colorado. "I think a lot of people had some really good ideas."
Drake and his cousin, 10-year-old Morgan Uribe of Coeur d'Alene, also participated in the parade. They dressed as Mario and Luigi from Nintendo's "Super Mario Bros." and wore homemade "Mario Karts" as they skated.
“My dad helped to build them and spray paint them,” Morgan said before the parade. “They have a hole in the middle of them where we're just going to put them around our waist and roller blade around the park, basically roller blading with a costume on. Human-powered!"
The park was filled with families enjoying the many things to do at GizMotion. Gizmo-CDA executive director Barbara Pleason Mueller said she enjoyed seeing girls use the Kinect at the Girl Revolution in Technology station and watching kids be creative at the Mutant Toy booth, but she really loved the lineup of vehicles in the parade.
"We’ve widened it this year; it used to be that you had to build your whole vehicle, and this year we decided to make it so you could ‘bling’ your bike," Mueller said. "It’s been really good because there’s a huge amount of creativity there. It’s a stack full of old junk that they’re turning into something new ... It’s another way of not having to use a huge amount of resources to do something that’s accessible to people. I like seeing that."
Marty Roberts, Loren and Lila's dad who dressed as Kylo Ren for the parade, said building the kinetic vehicles with his daughters was pretty special.
"It happens so fast they grow up, but they’ll always remember the special things we did,” he said. "And they learn so much in the process of building these. They learn welding, they learn woodworking, they learn how to solve problems — and there were lots of problems with this, trust me. When we first made it, it wouldn’t fit in the trailer, so we had to cut the axle down so it would fit … It was a challenge, but they enjoyed it and it worked."